Question: Emily is 5 times as old as Ishaan and is also 8 years older than Ishaan. How old is Ishaan?
Answer: We can use the given information to write down two equations that describe the ages of Emily and Ishaan. Let Emily's current age be $e$ and Ishaan's current age be $i$ $e = 5i$ $e = i + 8$ Now we have two independent equations, and we can solve for our two unknowns. Since we are looking for $i$ , and both of our equations have $e$ alone on one side, this is a convenient time to use elimination. Subtracting the second equation from the first equation, we get: $0 =$ $5i$ $-$ $ (i + 8)$ which combines the information about $i$ from both of our original equations. Solving for $i$ , we get: $4 i = 8$ $i = 2$.